aspe:keyoxide.org:YOZV4NG7XSCA5HRL6YUECBIWE4

wiki-user: shaytan

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Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: February 20th, 2024

Hello guys, today I wanted to talk about a project I deeply care about and I’m actively contributing to, as I believe its good for everyone, including privacy concerned users

Ladybird Browser

This browser comes from the project “SerenityOS”, and has since evolved and separated from it. The founders are Andreas Kling, and Chris Wanstrath. The main goal of this project is to create a browser from scratch, avoiding chromium, gecko, etc. The main keypoints that should be of interest for Privacy Oriented Users are the following:

  • Ladybird lead (Andreas Kling) states “We’re not monetizing users, in any way. This is uncharted territory for browsers. So we’re not going to do any default search deals. We’re not going to do cryptocurrencies or try to monetize user data, just sponsorships and donations”

  • While** Ladybird will implement current web standards including cookie handling and tracking mechanisms for compatibility**, the browser’s philosophy puts the user in control of these decisions, not the company. The browser won’t have built-in incentives to encourage data collection since it doesn’t profit from it.

  • It aims to be “free from advertising’s influence” Ladybird, representing a shift away from the current web ecosystem where users like us are the product. This allows the project to implement privacy features without worrying about harming advertising partners or revenue streams.

As of now, the project has hired several developers with money coming from donations, from partners such as FUTO, Shopify, Cloudflare, among many, and is also seeing lots of volunteer activity on github. So well, if you like the web having more diversity and us having another alternative to google, check them out https://ladybird.org/

It’s hard to make the full switch towards a more private life, but switching your mail already fixes a big underlying issue: that being, Google or other companies having access to all your emails. So, I’ll cover the basics of making your online mailing more private.

Switching Mail Providers:

Your email is a big part of your online footprint and helps you keep track of your online identity. So, in order to keep that to yourself, I encourage leaving services like:

“Gmail” or “Outlook”,

for others like:

“ProtonMail” or “Tutanota”.

This is already a big step towards keeping all your emails private and safe. Both of these are free and respect your privacy on their free tier, but expand in features with paid plans. This takes time, as you have to switch your email on most accounts to this new email.

For the best privacy, you should delete most accounts and create new ones with this new email or with aliases. Some people, like myself, prefer to have multiple emails over aliases. For example:

(Self-hosting your own mail domain is possible, but it’s a harder process, and custom domains are not always accepted or reliable.)

(You should keep your old email for a year or so to make sure no important service was left behind locked to that email. Once that’s done, you can delete the account.)

Tips:

If you can, you should try expanding your protocol with this:

  • Adding 2FA to any online website, especially email. I use ~~“Authy” ~~for this. -> Better use Aegis, good app!

  • Switching your browser to something like “Librewolf”.

  • Switching to a password manager like “Proton Pass” or “1Password”.

  • Encourage your close family to do the same once you’re comfortable with the process.

  • Switch social media to private alternatives.

  • If you take any efforts to switch browser or install Aegis, try to use “F-droid”, or even better, “Droidify”. These being a FOSS app store, and a good Material alternative frontend. For apps not in here, consider “Aurora store”, a more private **“Play store” **alternative

This is about it for me, quick posts from class, feel free to add into this topic bellow.

Edit:

Important additions after reading the comments:

  • Proton is a bit disencouraged by some for some political views published by the CEO under proton’s account and image. They backed down, and I believe it isn’t something too bad as for users to leave such a good privacy oriented suite of apps. I encourage anyone who cares about this topic to research before making the switch.

  • Mail is not 100% private with any option, and shouldn’t be used for highly sensitive information. For that use end to end encrypted apps well respected, like “signal”. Still is best to just don’t send very sensitive information online.

  • As a comment pointed, for a mail to be as private as possible, both the sender and reciever should have a private mail, otherwise you can be private but the other person would still be having your mail conversations stored under “gmail” or similar.

Sorry if this post didn’t give the best newbie advice, I tried to track back some of my old knowledge, but I’ll take more time to research the next time. Take care and stay private!